Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Immigration NZ/NZSIS no interest in NZP/FBI 'joint op'

To all the disingenuous half-wits on talk-back/talk-hate radio who say 'if Kim Dotcom has done nothing wrong then he should be happy to go to America to face the charges and prove his innocence' the question must be put to them:
Q. Why are the Americans not prosecuting Kim in NZ, under NZ law, for his supposed copyright infringements? Why do the need to drag him off to a Hollywood court?
A. Kim has committed no offence under NZ law. There is no NZ victim here. There is no case to answer, but in the USA where the corporate lobbyists have purchased politicians and own the law.

Copyright should essentially be a civil matter - a trade dispute with commercial remedies. To justify their claim - as Hollywood does - that their production costs and marketing expenses relate to the popularity of artists and content is one stretch, that this infers the right of the middle-men to get rich from it by an over-priced and exclusionary licensing scheme is another, and that it should be at the cost of government agencies and involve the imprisonment of the opposing party in the copyright dispute is yet quite another and no less extraordinary. And no less wrong. The extra-territorial concessions obtained through treaties secured by the Imperial powers over weaker nations (often by naval force or threats of naval force, invasion, annexation and colonisation) in the period to the last war were no less ambitious.

The hypothesised and exaggerated losses attributed to file hosting/sharing websites such as Mega and that supposedly undermines the artist's right to a fair wage for the likes of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke seem an unconvincing ploy by the moguls. Would Pharrell be otherwise any less happy as he purports to be? Undermining the maximum potential yield of on-sold territorial royalties from re-runs of the likes of Friends does not seem a convincing concern for a government other than the one owned by Hollywood. Unfortunately NZ it seems - under National - is owned by Hollywood too (certainly after John Key changed the labour laws to suit Warner Bros following a visit by a delegation of them to his house this has been so).

Kim was arrested at his home and him and his family and household were given the Ruatoki treatment because he is being extradited under a treaty with America which has been ratified into NZ law - but Kim is not being prosecuted under NZ law for anything. As I understand the situation no legal proceedings - criminal at least - are underway by the Crown or the Americans or a "McCready's friend" or anyone else against Kim and his Mega cohorts. It's only an American offence. It's not a real crime, it's a Hollywood crime. A Hollywood crime involving a Hollywood bust searching for a Hollywood ending.

So it is with little amazement, and with much anticipation, that documents have now been released proving that Kim Dotcom was set-up by the NZ government - the security and intelligence apparatus and the Immigration Service conspired to have Kim's residency approved for the purposes of the Americans extradited him to the US. The NZ Herald has the documents from the SIS stating "political pressure" was being exerted from Immigration NZ. The Immigration CEO knew the FBI and NZ Police were going to do "a joint op" on Kim from this RNZ News article. And yet all this is kosher? Rotten Wellington.